Man drives $75 pickup for 38 years

The average transaction price for a pickup truck today is about $40,000, and Bob Sportel probably couldn’t care less.

The Prinsburg, Minn., resident bought his 1957 Chevy pickup for $75 bucks 38 years ago and has been driving it to work at the local farm co-op every day since.

Sportel tells KARE 11 it wasn’t running when he bought it, but he fixed it up and hoped to get four years out of it. It’s still going about 300,000 miles later (he’s not exactly sure, the odometer has always been busted.)

The truck sports what’s left of its original paint, plus plenty of duct tape and Bondo. Other than that, Sportel says he’s spent a total of about $1,000 on repairs and gets the oil changed four times a year. He never even had a radio installed, and when the exhaust busted, well, let’s just say the locals know when he’s coming.

Sportel recently retired, but he’s not ready to put the truck out to pasture.

“It just becomes a part of you,” he tells KARE. “I don’t know how to explain it.”